Method and apparatus for customer retention

ABSTRACT

Method and apparatus that facilitates customer retention, churn reduction, and customer satisfaction by predicting customer churn and taking an appropriate action to retain a customer is described. In an example, a customer retention method acquires information indicative of customer service usage by customers. The customer retention method then provides an analysis of the acquired information. The analysis predicts the likelihood of churn for each customer. The customer retention method then identifies affected customers based on the analysis. The customer retention method then automatically selects customer support executives to initiate an action for each of the affected customers. The customer retention method selects the customer support executives based on skill in handling the affected customers, among other factors.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a method andsystem for handling customers and, more specifically, for aidingcustomer retention, churn reduction, and customer satisfaction.

2. Description of the Related Art

The importance of customer service has grown with the rising dominanceof the service sector in the global economy and has a huge impact onindividuals, households, firms, and societies. Today, in addition todelivering high-quality products, an organization has to offer qualityservice to its customers. To offer quality service, the organization mayneed to monitor satisfaction level of its customers to minimize customerturnover or churn.

Customer churn is a substantive problem for service providers ingeneral. The service providers activate services to attract thecustomers, but often find it difficult to retain its customers. This ismore pronounced when the service providers do not have ongoingcontractual agreements with the end customers.

Traditional techniques for retaining customers involve substantial helpfrom customer support executives. These techniques are labor intensive,non-scalable and extremely expensive, especially for service providersoffering a low cost service.

Thus, there is a need for a solution that provides an indication orwarning automatically to a service provider indicative of customerdissatisfaction to enable the service provider to address customerproblems at an early stage.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus that facilitatescustomer retention, churn reduction, and customer satisfaction bypredicting customer churn and taking an appropriate action to retain acustomer.

An aspect of the present invention provides a customer retention method.The customer retention method acquires information indicative ofcustomer service usage by customers. The customer retention method thenprovides an analysis of the acquired information. The analysis predictsthe likelihood of churn for each customer. The customer retention methodthen identifies affected customers based on the analysis. The customerretention method then automatically selects customer support executivesto initiate an action for each of the affected customers. The customerretention method selects the customer support executives based on skillin handling the affected customers, among other factors.

In another aspect, the present invention provides a customer retentionsystem. The customer retention system comprises a customer informationmodule, an analyzer, a customer identification module and a customerretention module. The customer information module acquires informationindicative of customer service usage by customers. The analyzer providesan analysis of the information, which predicts the likelihood of churnfor each of the customers. The customer identification module identifiesaffected customers based on the analysis. The customer retention moduleautomatically selects customer support executives based on skill inhandling the affected customers to initiate an action. In oneembodiment, the analyzer may interface with a communicator module thattransmits this information in near real-time to external entities suchas wireless carrier partners to proactively contact the customer andprevent churn from happening.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

So that the manner in which the above recited features of the presentinvention can be understood in detail, a more particular description ofthe invention, briefly summarized above, may be had by reference toembodiments, some of which are illustrated in the appended drawings. Itis to be noted, however, that the appended drawings illustrate onlytypical embodiments of this invention and are therefore not to beconsidered limiting of its scope, for the invention may admit to otherequally effective embodiments.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram depicting an exemplary embodiment of acommunication system in accordance with one or more aspects of theinvention;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a customer retention system in accordancewith another embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of a customer retention method in accordance withan embodiment of the invention; and

FIG. 4 is a detailed flowchart of the customer retention method inaccordance with another embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 is a block diagram depicting an exemplary embodiment of acommunication system 100 in accordance with one or more aspects of theinvention. The communication system 100 includes customer electronicdevices 106, a network 102, a server 104, a database 108, and variousapplication servers 105. Network 102 is coupled to server 104,application servers 105, database 108, and customer electronic devices106. Network 102 can be a packet-switched network, a circuit-switchednetwork, a wireless network, or a combination thereof. In an embodimentof the present invention, the packet-switched network is the Internet.In another embodiment, packet-switched network is a Metropolitan AreaNetwork (MAN). In yet another embodiment, packet-switched network is aWide Area Network (WAN). Further, in various embodiments of the presentinvention, packet-switched network may be, for example, an InternetProtocol (IP) network, an Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) network, etc.In various embodiments, network 102 may include a Global System forMobile Communications (GSM) network, a Code Division Multiple Access(CDMA) network, or like type wireless network known in the art.

In various embodiments of the invention, customer electronic device 106may be a fixed line device (including a Voice over Internet Protocol(VoIP) phone, Personal Computer (PC) desktop client, etc.) or a mobiledevice, such as a cellular telephone, personal digital assistant (PDA),laptop computer, or the like. In an embodiment, one or more of thecustomer electronic devices 106 includes a satellite positioning system(SPS) receiver 107 and a time-stamping module 109. The SPS receiver 107is configured to determine the location of the customer electronicdevice 106 using SPS satellite signals as is well known in the art(e.g., a global positioning system (GPS) receiver). The time stampingmodule 109 is configured to determine a time-of-day, which may bederived from the SPS receiver 107 and/or the network 102 as is wellknown in the art.

The customer electronic devices 106 are configured to communicate withthe application servers 105. Each of the application servers 105 isconfigured to provide a particular service to one or more of thecustomer electronic devices 106. For example, in one embodiment, one ormore of the application servers 105 is configured to provide a jobtracking service. A customer electronic device 106 is used to reportvarious events to an application server 105 and receive various datarelated to jobs from an application server 105. For example, a customerelectronic device 106 may report a dock in by an employee, receiveinformation for one or more specific jobs, receive a report that anemployee is traveling to a specific job, receive a report that a job hasbeen started, receive a report that a job has been completed, andreceive a clock out by an employee. Each of these reported items mayinclude a time-stamp and/or location stamp. Those skilled in the artwill appreciate that the application servers 105 may implement othertypes of services that require periodic transactions with the customerelectronic devices 106.

Database 108 stores customer information generated by the transactionsbetween the application servers 105 and the customer electronic devices106. In an embodiment of the invention, various items or records of thecustomer information stored in the database 108 include timestampsand/or location stamps. The customer information may include datagenerated in response to transmissions by customer electronic device106. The customer information stored in database 108 may be utilized byserver 104 while conducting analysis, as described further below. Thedatabase 108 is a logical unit of storage. In an embodiment, thedatabase 108 may be formed from a portion of the overall storage of aphysical device, by the storage of an entire physical device or by thestorage of multiple physical devices combined together.

Server 104 comprises a processor 110, a memory 112, and support circuits114. Memory 112 and support circuits 114 are coupled to processor 110.The processor 110 may include one or more microprocessors known in theart. The support circuits 114 for the processor 110 include conventionalcache, power supplies, clock circuits, data registers, I/O interfaces,and the like. The memory 112 may include one or more of the followingrandom access memory, read only memory, magneto-resistive read/writememory, optical read/write memory, cache memory, magnetic read/writememory, and the like, as well as signal-bearing media as describedbelow. In an embodiment, the server 104 is one of the applicationservers 104 configured to provide a particular service. As describedbelow, the server 104 is also configured to implement a customerretention system. Alternatively, the server 104 is configured to onlyimplement the customer retention system.

The memory 112 stores processor-executable instructions and/or data thatmay be executed by and/or used by the processor 110. Theseprocessor-executable instructions may comprise hardware, firmware,software, and the like, or some combination thereof. In one embodiment,modules having processor-executable instructions that are stored in thememory 112 define customer retention system that comprises a customerinformation module 116, an analyzer 118, a customer identificationmodule 120 and a customer retention module 122. Customer informationmodule 116 generates information indicative of customer service usage.In an embodiment, the customer information module 116 generates suchinformation from the customer information stored in the database 108.Analyzer 118 provides an analysis of the information acquired by thecustomer information module 116, which predicts the likelihood of churnfor each of the customers. Customer identification module 120 identifiesat least one affected customer based on the analysis. Customer retentionmodule 122 automatically selects a customer support executive based onskill required for handling the affected customer to initiate an action.The features of these modules are described in more detail below.

In another embodiment, the memory 112 includes a communication module119. The communication module 119 sends information produced by theanalyzer 118, the customer identification module 120, and/or thecustomer retention module 122 to one or more external entities 130. Anexternal entity may include, for example, a wireless carrier partneredwith the operator of the server 104. The wireless carrier provideswireless service to the customer electronic devices 106, for example.The external entities 130 may use the information to proactively contactthe affected customers to prevent churn. For example, the externalentities 130 may instruct the customer support executive selected by thecustomer retention module 122 to initiate the action. Alternatively, theexternal entities 130 may perform selection of the appropriate customersupport executive themselves based on the at least one affected customeridentified by the customer identification module 120. That is, each ofthe entities 130 may include their own version of a customer retentionmodule that operates similarly to the customer retention module 122. Inyet another example, the external entities 130 may identify the at leastone affected customer and select the appropriate customer supportexecutive themselves based on the analysis performed by the analyzer118. That is, each of the entities 130 may include their own versions ofcustomer identification and retention modules that operate similarly tothe customer identification and retention modules 120 and 122. Theinformation may be sent from the server 104 to the external entities 130through the network 102 in real-time or near real-time.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram depicting an exemplary embodiment of acustomer retention system 200 in accordance with an embodiment of theinvention. Elements of FIG. 2 that are the same as those in FIG. 1 aredesignated with identical reference numerals. In an embodiment, customerinformation module 116 generates information indicative of a customerservice usage. The customer information module 116 may analyze thecustomer information in the database 108, such as time records, locationrecords, job records, website login information, and like typetransaction data associated with a service (e.g., job tracking service),to obtain a measure of usage of the service (“service usageinformation”). For example, the customer information module 116 mayrecord the number of records transmitted. In an embodiment of theinvention, the customer service usage information includes sets ofinformation corresponding to periods of time (e.g., a set of informationfor each month, each week, each day, etc.).

Analyzer 118 analyzes the acquired customer's service usage information.Analyzer 118 may use analysis tools to predict the likelihood of churnof each customer. For example, analyzer 118 analyzes the service usageinformation for a customer. Analyzer 118 compares usage from previoustime periods to current time periods and determines if fewer handsetsfrom a customer's handset base are reporting transaction data. Given thecustomer service usage information, analyzer 118 ranks the customersbased on likelihood of churn. The ranks help in determining whichcustomers may be under-utilizing the provided services and/or have anincreased probability of terminating the services, referred to asaffected customers.

In an embodiment of the invention, analyzer 118 includes a comparingmodule 202 and a ranking module 204. Comparing module 202 is configuredto compare sets of service usage data associated with different periods.For example, comparing module 202 may compare a first information set toa second information set to produce comparison results. For example, thefirst set of information may include information regarding usageinformation in the month of January, and the second set of informationmay include information regarding usage information in the month ofFebruary. Ranking module 204 analyzes the comparison results and ranksthe customers based on a scale representative of predicted likelihood ofchurn. For example, a determination may be made by the comparison module202 whether customer usage of a service has decreased from one timeperiod to another. Ranking module 204 assigns a rank to each customer,with customers having the larger decreases in service usage having thehigher ranks and customers having the lesser decreases or increases inservice usage having the lower ranks.

Customer identification module 120 identifies the affected customer(s)based on the analysis performed by analyzer 118. For example, thecustomer identification module 120 may select customers having a rankhigher than a threshold rank. Then, customer retention module 122selects at least one customer support executive to initiate an actionfor each affected customer identified by customer identification module120. The customer support executive may be selected based on thecustomer support executive's skill in handling affected customers, orthe skill set required to handle the affected customer.

In an embodiment of the invention, customer retention module 122automatically selects a customer support executive to initiate anaction. In another embodiment of the invention, the type of problemfaced by the customer may determine the selection of the customersupport executive. In an embodiment of the invention, the action takenby a customer support executive may include initiating a customerretention program, which may include recommendations to increasecustomer service usage. However, any recommendations may be refined inreal-time while the customer support executive is talking to thecustomer, such as by conducting a brief needs-assessment survey. Thecustomer support executive may then feed the data acquired from thesurvey into the customer information module 116, and a new action may begenerated based on the real-time predictive analysis carried out byanalyzer 118.

Customer retention module 122 may include an execution module 206, whichexecutes the customer retention program. For example, the customerretention program execution may include scheduling a visit to anaffected customer by a customer support executive, who may beautomatically selected based on the level of skill required for thecustomer. In another example, the customer retention program executionmay include sending messages through email, short message service (SMS),telephone calls, pager, or fax to an affected customer. Such messagesmay include but are not limited to a discount offer one or more aspectsof the provided service, a solution to a problem faced by the customer,or the like.

The communication module 119 is configured to receive the analysis fromthe analysis module 120, an indicia of the at least one affectedcustomer from the customer identification module 122, and/or an indiciaof the selected customer support executive. The communication module 119is configured to send at least one of such data to one or more externalentities.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of a customer retention method 300, in accordancewith an embodiment of the invention. At step 302, server 104 acquiresservice usage information of at least one customer. In an embodiment,the provided service is a job-tracking service. The customer serviceusage information is based on customer information, such as timerecords, location records, job records, website login information, andlike type transaction data. Also in an embodiment, the customer serviceusage information is acquired for predefined time intervals.

An analysis of the customer service usage information is provided atstep 304. The analysis predicts the likelihood of churn for eachcustomer, as described above. In another embodiment, statistical modelsmay be used to generate data for predicting likelihood of churn for thecustomer. At optional step 305, the analysis is sent to at least oneexternal entity.

At step 306, server 104 identifies at least one affected customer basedon the analysis. An affected customer is a customer whose analysisindicates an increased likelihood of churn. The identification of atleast one affected customer may further include a relative comparison ofthe analyses of the affected customers. Step 306 may be performed by theat least one external entity if the analysis is sent to the at least oneexternal entity at step 305. At optional step 307, indicia of the atleast one affected customer and/or the analysis is sent to the at leastone external entity.

At step 308, server 104 selects at least one customer support executiveautomatically to initiate an action. The automatic selection is based onskill in handling the one or more affected customer. In an embodiment ofthe invention, the skill of the customer support executive in handling acustomer is quantified by correlating the skill to a weighted meanrating. The weighted mean rating is a weighted mean of the ratings ofthe customer support executive on various parameters. These parametersmay include, but are not limited to, qualities such as friendliness,helpfulness, courteousness, knowledge, accuracy, thoroughness,resourcefulness, empowerment, ability to recommend solutions, ability toanticipate needs, efficiency, trustworthiness, authenticity,reliability, responsibility, appropriateness of appearance and demeanor,and the like. The customer support executive may initiate an action thatis aimed at retaining the customer. In an embodiment of the invention,such action comprises executing a customer retention program. In anembodiment of the invention, the customer retention program may compriseaddressing problems faced by a customer, acquiring information fromcustomers regarding their product choices and preferences. A customersupport executive may visit affected customers at a scheduled time andexecute the customer retention program. In another embodiment of theinvention, the customer retention program execution comprises sendingmessages through email, Short Message Service (SMS), calls, pager, orfax to the customer. The message may comprise a discount offer onservices, a solution to a problem faced by the customer, or the like.

Step 308 may be performed by the at least one external entity if indiciaof the at least one affected customer and/or the analysis is sent to theat least one entity at step 307. At optional step 309, indicia of theselected customer support person(s), indicia of the at least oneaffected customer, and/or the analysis is sent to the at least oneexternal entity.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of the detailed customer retention method 400, inaccordance with another embodiment of the invention. At step 402, server104 acquires service usage information of at least one customer. At step404, a first set of information corresponding to a first time period iscompared to a second set of information corresponding to a second timeperiod. For example, the first set of information may includeinformation regarding customer interaction with a company in the monthof January, and the second set of information may include informationregarding customer interaction in the month of February. At step 406,customers are ranked based on the comparison of the results on a scalerepresentative of predicted likelihood of customer churn.

For example, customers may be ranked on a three-level ranking scalecomprising 3 for ‘more attention needed’, 2 for ‘medium attentionneeded’ and 1 for ‘less attention needed’. ‘More attention needed’ for acustomer may signify that the customer might be on a route to changevendor. ‘Less attention needed’ for a customer may signify that thecustomer might be highly satisfied or otherwise devoted and notconsidered a risk for changing vendor. For an exemplary data collectionperiod, a decreasing trend in the usage of service made by a customer tomay suggest a ranking of 3 for ‘more attention needed’. However, theranking may also depend on one or more threshold parameters which, forexample, may be the average amount service usage by the customer. Inthis case, if the service usage is decreasing but is otherwise stillabove the average service usage, then the customer may be assigned aranking of 2, for ‘medium attention needed’.

At step 408, the rank assigned to each customer is compared to athreshold rank to identify the affected customer(s) as being the mostlikely to exhibit churn. In an embodiment of the invention, thresholdrank may vary with the customer. Thereafter, at step 410, server 104selects at least one customer support executive automatically toinitiate an action.

An aspect of the invention is implemented as a program product for usewith a computer system. Program(s) of the program product definesfunctions of embodiments and can be contained on a variety ofsignal-bearing media, which include, but are not limited to: (i)information permanently stored on non-writable storage media (e.g.,read-only memory devices within a computer such as CD-ROM or DVD-ROMdisks readable by a CD-ROM drive or a DVD drive); (ii) alterableinformation stored on writable storage media (e.g., floppy disks withina diskette drive or hard-disk drive or read/writable CD or read/writableDVD); or (iii) information conveyed to a computer by a communicationsmedium, such as through a computer or telephone network, includingwireless communications. The latter embodiment specifically includesinformation downloaded from the Internet and other networks. Suchsignal-bearing media, when carrying computer-readable instructions thatdirect functions of the invention, represent embodiments of theinvention.

The present invention, in its various embodiments, advantageouslyprovides a customer retention method and a customer retention systemthat help in customer retention, churn reduction, and customersatisfaction. It also advantageously provides a computer program which,when executed by a processor, performs the steps of a customer retentionmethod. The present invention also advantageously provides a system thatis scalable, that reduces costs and that is not labor intensive.

In the foregoing specification, specific embodiments of the presentinvention have been described. However, one of ordinary skill in the artwill appreciate that various modifications and changes can be madewithout departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention asset forth in the claims below. Accordingly, the specification andfigures are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictivesense, and all such modifications are intended to be included within thescope of present invention. The benefits, advantages, solutions toproblems, and any element(s) that may cause any benefit, advantage, orsolution to occur or become more pronounced are not to be construed as acritical, required, or essential features or elements of any or all theclaims.

1. A customer retention method, comprising: acquiring informationindicative of service usage by customers, wherein the informationindicative of customer service usage comprises a first set ofinformation corresponding to a first time period and a second set ofinformation corresponding to a second time period; providing an analysisof the information that predicts the likelihood of churn for each of thecustomers, wherein the step of providing comprises: comparing the firstset of information to the second set of information to producecomparison results; and assigning each of the customers a rank accordingto a scale representative of predicted likelihood of churn based on thecomparison results; identifying at least one affected customer based onthe analysis, wherein the step of identifying comprises: comparing therank of each of the customers to a threshold rank to identify the atleast one affected customer as being most likely to exhibit churn; andautomatically selecting at least one customer support executive based onskill in handling the at least one affected customer to initiate anaction.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the information indicative ofcustomer service usage is based on at least one of time records,location records, job information, or website login informationtransmitted to a server.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the actioncomprises executing a customer retention program.
 4. The method of claim3, wherein the customer retention program execution comprises schedulinga visit to the at least one affected customer by a customer supportexecutive.
 5. The method of claim 3, wherein the customer retentionprogram execution comprises sending messages to the customer through anyone of email, (short message service) SMS, calls, pager, and fax.
 6. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising: sending at least one of theanalysis, indicia of the at least one affected customer, or indicia ofthe at least one customer support executive to an external entity.
 7. Acustomer retention system comprising: a customer information module foracquiring information indicative of service usage by customers, whereinthe information indicative of customer service usage comprises a firstset of information corresponding to a first time period and a second setof information corresponding to a second time period; an analyzer forproviding an analysis of the information that predicts the likelihood ofchurn for each of the customers, wherein the analyzer comprises: acomparing module for comparing the first set of information to thesecond set of information to produce comparison results; and a rankingmodule for assigning each of the customers a rank according to a scalerepresentative of predicted likelihood of churn based on the comparisonresults; a customer identification module for identifying at least oneaffected customer based on the analysis, wherein the customeridentification module is configured to compare the rank of each of thecustomers to a threshold rank to identify the at least one affectedcustomer as being most likely to exhibit churn; and a customer retentionmodule for automatically selecting at least one customer supportexecutive based on skill in handling the at least one affected customerto initiate an action.
 8. The system of claim 7, wherein the informationindicative of customer service usage is based on at least one of timerecords, location records, job information, or website login informationtransmitted to a server.
 9. The system of claim 7, wherein the customerretention module comprises an execution module for executing a customerretention program.
 10. The system of claim 9, wherein the executionmodule is configured to schedule a visit to the at least one affectedcustomer by a customer support executive.
 11. A non-transitory computerreadable medium for storing a computer program that, when executed by aprocessor, cause the processor to perform a customer retention method,comprising: acquiring information indicative of service usage bycustomers, wherein the information indicative of customer service usagecomprises a first set of information corresponding to a first timeperiod and a second set of information corresponding to a second timeperiod; providing an analysis of the information that predicts thelikelihood of churn for each of the customers, wherein the step ofproviding comprises: comparing the first set of information to thesecond set of information to produce comparison results; and assigningeach of the customers a rank according to a scale representative ofpredicted likelihood of churn based on the comparison results;identifying at least one affected customer based on the analysis,wherein the step of identifying comprises: comparing the rank of each ofthe customers to a threshold rank to identify the at least one affectedcustomer as being most likely to exhibit churn; and automaticallyselecting at least one customer support executive based on skill inhandling the at least one affected customer to initiate an action. 12.The computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein the informationindicative of customer service usage is based on at least one of timerecords, location records, job information, or website login informationtransmitted to a server.
 13. The computer readable medium of claim 11,wherein the action comprises executing a customer retention program. 14.The computer readable medium of claim 13, wherein the customer retentionprogram execution comprises scheduling a visit to the at least oneaffected customer by a customer support executive.